News

The cash-strapped city of Albany is considering building a sprawling retail complex on its southern border with Berkeley. The project threatens to create traffic hazards on the Gilman Interchange.
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In recent weeks, Berkeley High School has been the site of a teach-in, a die-in and a walkout, among other anti-war activities. But thanks to Michael and Vicki Larrick, it all happened in the shadow of an American flag.
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Thursday’s Chronicle Op-Ed page featured a column by a smiling fellow identified as a Readers’ Representative, entitled “Credibility at Stake.” The title was right; the column was flat wrong. His conclusion: “If it were up to me … the sign over the entrance to The Chronicle would read ‘Check your activism at the door.’”
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Baghdad’s residents are being pounded by the U.S. military policy of shock and awe. Designed to be “the non-nuclear equivalent of the impact that atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on the Japanese,” the purpose is to “take the city down ... [until] they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted.” President Bush describes this terrorism as liberation.
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Even as the country has been plunged into a war, something positive might still come out of all this. Whatever the outcome of the pending crises, and whatever their duration, a significant portion of this country just may have been reawakened to become active, involved participants — players, voters, protesters, hell-raisers.
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Berkeley schools Superintendent Michele Lawrence told a group of city officials and parents over the weekend that elementary school libraries may face serious cuts next year and that district staff, stretched to the limit in the midst of a budget crisis, simply don’t have the time to come up with a creative solution.
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The Occupied Territories: What is the Future? This symposium with professors from Israel and Palestine takes place from 5:30 to 9 p.m. in room 2050 in the Valley Life Sciences Building on the UC campus.
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I heard the pop-pop of a gun outside my bedroom window late one night last month, but I didn’t get up right away. I waited for more noises. I heard a scream and someone running. I kept still, hoping the commotion was the result of friendly fireworks, but it was too late for Chinese New Year and too early for Independence Day.
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An hour northwest of Berkeley lies the city of Sonoma, full of clean air, rolling hills and seductive vineyards. Though the town weathered a burst of notoriety in 1846 — as the rebellious center and 25-day capital of the California Republic — today it is known more for its pleasures than its politics: good food and wine, art galleries, boutiques, small shops and history.
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As a pregnant sophomore at Berkeley High School two years ago, Linda Carcamo thought a child would mean the end of her education. But then she saw a newspaper story about the school district’s Vera M. Casey Parent Child Education Center and everything changed.
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A newspaper? Why a newspaper? Why now? We’ve been asked these questions often by friends and family in the last three months. From time to time, we’ve even asked ourselves why we’re doing this. It’s a lot of work. It’s time consuming. It’s expensive. We were comfortably retired from the business world, enjoying our grandchildren.
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The Fine Arts Cinema building was leveled by a bulldozer Monday, bringing an end to the last physical legacy of Berkeley’s repertory cinema heyday and clearing the way for construction of a new 250-seat theater on the Shattuck Avenue site.
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Berkeley Camera Club meets every Tuesday at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Begins at 7:30 p.m. Call Don, 525-3565.
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Opinion

Editorials

This week, 125 years ago, Berkeley was incorporated as a town. On that day, April 1, 1878, it was not yet large enough to be a city; that would happen in 1908 just before Old City Hall was dedicated in 1909.
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